Among the various sketches contained in the second of the two Grasnick notebooks described by Nottebohm (No. II, pages 486–487), there are several for Goethe’s poem Nähe des Geliebten (“Nearness of the Beloved”). Beethoven had begun setting the entire poem to music for voice and piano, stanza by stanza, assigning each one a distinct melody and inserting instrumental interludes between them.

The work remained unfinished; however, one of the sketches for the first stanza became the theme for the Variations for Piano Four Hands in D Major, WoO 74.

These sketches for the Lied are preserved in Berlin, in the Grasnick 2 manuscript, on pages 37, 38, 39, 41, and 42.

Nottebohm informs us:

“Beethoven had begun setting the entire poem to music for voice and piano, stanza by stanza, giving each a different melody and inserting instrumental interludes between them. The work was not completed; but one of the sketches for the first stanza became the theme of the Variations for Piano Four Hands in D Major, referenced in Biamonti 177.”

In my version, I sought to create a piano accompaniment that incorporates all of Beethoven’s indications and remains as linear and coherent as possible with Goethe’s text.

While Schubert often set all stanzas of a Lied using a repeated accompaniment, Beethoven tended to modify the music continuously to reflect the text more closely. In this case, the constant variation in the vocal line led me to continually shift the atmosphere in the piano part, introducing changes in figuration, ritardandos, and tempo reprises, eventually returning to the joyful mood of the first stanza.

I also composed a piano introduction, which I reused as an interlude between stanzas and as a conclusion.

A heartfelt thank-you goes to Antonietta, who patiently corrected some inaccuracies in the piano part.

— Graziano Denini